


On Orchids

by lotesse



Series: Start over at the wires, use lions! use thunder! [2]
Category: Kairos (O'Keefe) Series - Madeleine L'Engle
Genre: F/M, Motherhood, Post-A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-09
Updated: 2018-11-09
Packaged: 2019-08-20 23:47:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16565456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lotesse/pseuds/lotesse
Summary: The essentials of the story were unchanged; Beezie Maddox had married Paddy O'Keefe when she was still too young, borne his children in neglect and poverty, and finally suffered his abandonment when Calvin and his siblings had still been small. So, Meg wondered as she sat in the kitchen of the O'Keefe house, what had Charles Wallace changed that could account for the appearance of all these new aunts and uncles for her baby? What had the unicorn done to mend the schism that had always separated Calvin from his family?





	On Orchids

_We live by tunneling for we are people buried alive. To me, the tunnels you make will seem strangely aimless, uprooted orchids. But the fragrance is undying. A Little Boy has run away from Amherst a few Days ago, writes Emily Dickinson in a letter of 1883, and when asked where he was going, he replied, Vermont or Asia._

_-Anne Carson_

 

None of her children had looked like Chuck. 

Beezie'd borne eleven of them by the time she was done, and in not a one of her babies' faces had she seen Chuck's wise, gentle eyes. Nor had she once discovered his careful, eldritch temperament in any of them as they grew. She'd looked so hard, at first.

When the third baby had been born she'd raged over it, wept over it, in the private closed-in hours of her afternoon when everything was laundry-baskets full of soiled nappies and endless rounds of bottle-brushing; she was twenty-two years old, and Chuck was gone, gone, gone. Reduced enough to barter herself and the length of her freedom for some shelter and a lazy word of care, she had gone herself, straight to the waiting embrace of Paddy O'Keefe; he'd been waiting for her, he said. 

All she'd wanted in the wide world was another sight of her brother's sweet dear hazel eyes, a baby she might have given his name. But her children had come out a lot of little Irishmen and -women, pale skin and reddish-brown hair and freckles all over, with looks like their father. She did not love them for it. And so she did not tell them her grandmother's stories about the Welsh Queen Branwen, and she did not teach them St. Patrick's Rune, did not admit them to the small circle in her heart where only her truest kin were permitted to enter. She had sealed that part of herself away when she'd married Paddy, and it would take more than his brats to open her up again.

(The third baby, Calvin, the one with the strong bones in his face and a shock of penny-bright orange hair in from birth, Calvin who had the well-omened bright blue eyes that only lightened as he passed out of babyhood, was the spitting image of his great-grandfather, her grandmother's lost Irish Patrick. But since she had never seen a photograph of her grandfather, and had no image of him to show her children, no one living ever knew it. And she had forgotten, too, by the time the third baby was born, about the story of the Indians and the Welshmen, and the prophecy with the eyes.) 

*

It didn't happen all at once; it was not like a backdrop being swapped out for a new one, but more like watercolors still fresh on a page fading as water washed over them, bleeding away edges and details. Meg had seen the start of it as soon as she'd caught sight of Calvin disembarking from his plane at the airport, tired-eyed but triumphant after his conference presentation in London. His posture was straighter, more erect, and his step rang lighter for all his tiredness; his smile when he saw her, and their yet-unborn baby, was even more brilliant than the one he'd had for her ever since she and Charles Wallace had first towed him home after them when he'd been a fourteen-year-old self-professed sport.

Charles Wallace and the unicorn had changed the Might-Have-Beens that had shaped the lives of Calvin's ancestors, she knew. And somehow, whatever they'd done had – softened – something, she didn't know what, but – 

Ever since she'd known him, Calvin had carried an injury in his heart: the blighting effects that an unkind environment would have on any young growing thing, and additionally a profound sense of a being apart. It had not got so far as real insecurity – Calvin was too gifted for that, too clever, too competent, and he knew the value of his own work as he knew value in the work of others – but there had been something, always, wounded and wrong in the way that he talked about his family in relation to himself. “A biological sport,” that was how he'd introduced himself – and she thought that it must be hard, terribly hard, to try to grow without the roots of family and heritage that she herself had always been able to rely on. And Calvin had wanted so _badly_ to connect with his mother, but it had never seemed to happen, somehow, for all he'd tried –

Mrs. O'Keefe hadn't lived to see her grandchild grow, just as Dennys had prophesied. She died on Epiphany, alone in her bed in her empty home, and from all the signs her end had been still and quiet. Calvin had wept for her – but at the memorial service, after they'd traveled back home to New England once more, only days after leaving at the end of the holiday, Meg had again seen something new, something better, in the way that Calvin and his brothers and sisters came together to mourn. 

Later, at the wake, Meg had found herself being pulled aside by Pat, the oldest of the O'Keefe boys, who had brought the most gorgeous handmade linen blanket – as he said, “For the little girl.” It was the loveliest thing she'd ever seen, all hand-crocheted white lace; he'd told her that his mother had made it, a long time ago, and given it to him, but he'd no use for it yet since he wasn't seeing anybody. Stunned, she'd thanked him – and then tried to remember if he'd ever said a single civil word to her in the past, beyond the distant bullying he had engaged in against the much younger little girl when she'd first started school. He'd offered to watch the baby for a while, because he said she looked tired. Meg could only gape and nod.

The essentials of the story were unchanged; Beezie Maddox had married Paddy O'Keefe when she was still too young, borne his children in neglect and poverty, and finally suffered his abandonment when Calvin and his siblings had still been small. So, Meg wondered as she sat in the kitchen of the O'Keefe house, resting, alone in a blessed rare moment of quiet, what had Charles Wallace changed that could account for the appearance of all these new aunts and uncles for her baby? What had the unicorn done to mend the schism that had always separated Calvin from his family?

Calvin's sister Maureen found her there. “They're a bit overwhelming, all in a pack,” Maureen said. “I don't blame you for seeking out some peace – at least there's some to be found, now that everyone doesn't live here any more. I swear Calvin spent most of his time in the woods as a little kid, because it was the only place to get away from everyone. Me, I always hid out at my boyfriend's, he didn't have any siblings or know anyone with kids and I always liked that, getting away from it all. Though I spose it's helpful for you, the free babysitting and all.”

Following the glimmer of an intuition, Meg asked, “Did your mom have any sibs, Maureen?”

“One,” Maureen said. “Our Uncle Chuck. Huh – guess Mom was like you, wasn't she, kid brother named Chuck. And hers was strange in the head, too, only not starting when he was a kid. He was born normal, got brain damage when they were teenagers – fell down a flight of stairs and woke up an innocent. Big sweet childlike type, didn't talk much but smiled a lot. He lived with us when we were all little, died of a stroke when I was about fifteen. Helped Mom with the childcare and housework. He got on with kids, being such a big kid himself. Your baby brother's doing better, though, isn't he? Heard he was going to make it to college and everything.”

Meg bit back the familiar wave of annoyance – Charles Wallace didn't need her springing to his defense against the casual slanders of their hometown lore, even less now than he had when they had been children. “Yeah,” she said instead, “He's great. He goes by Charles Wallace, not Chuck. Your mom used to call him that, though, sometimes.” Then she caught herself, and noticed the important thing hidden beneath the surface sting of Maureen's words – “You grew up with your uncle?”

“Yeah. To be honest, he did a lot for us kids. He – he really knew how to listen, you know? Mom loved him a lot. Having him around helped her get through some terrible things. They could talk to each other in some way none of the rest of us could. And he played with all of us, growing up. He just doted on Calvin. He called him 'Little Blue Eyes,' there was a reason but I don't remember it now. Does the baby still have her blue eyes?”

“Yes,” Meg answered, “but she's still too small for them to have changed. I don't care what color they're going to be, I'm just hoping they'll work better than mine do!”

*

She and Calvin were staying with the Murrys, a reversion to old habit left from the days when Calvin had driven home from college over the weekends to spend the evenings kissing his girlfriend in the relative privacy of her attic bedroom; Meg always slept there when she was in town, and it had become a tradition, born out of a joke, for Calvin to share the rickety old iron double-bedstead at the top of the house. 

Baby Poly made another addition, tucked snugly away in a quilt-padded bureau drawer for the night, close at hand for night-time feedings. She and Calvin had to sleep close in each other's arms in the smaller bed, the baby sometimes sandwiched between or draped across them, and it was a little bit like being children again, even with the baby there. 

“Cal?” she asked in the darkness. “Do you remember your Uncle Chuck? Your mom's little brother?”

“Of course,” Calvin said. “I was thirteen when he died, it hit me something fierce. That was just before I really got to know you and your family, you know. Mr. Jenkins was a big help in those days – I know he was your _bete noire,_ Meg, but he was a decent mentor to me, in his dry uninvolved sort of way.”

“Tell me about your uncle?”

Calvin took a breath. “Okay,” he said. “I don't see why you want to know, but – Chuck was disabled, he lived at home. I suppose you know that? He was a gentle soul. He used to tell me these stories about princes from the Celtic world coming to the Americas, there was something about a prophecy, and blue eyes, and roses burning – all very poetic, and it meant a lot to me as a kid. He'd end by telling me that my eyes were a good omen for the next generation, just like the prince's were. The story made me feel special, you know? Maybe kind of pathetic, but it helped me deal with things back then.”

“He sounds lovely.”

“That was something I liked about you from the beginning,” Calvin said. “The way you stood up for your little brother, when people – even me – would call him a moron, or slow, or whatever.”

They lay quietly then, wrapped in the dark embrace of the night and the worn warmth of Meg's old pile of quilts and bedding, needed to keep away the chill that crept in so near to the top of the house. “Meg,” Calvin said after a moment, “I think we should move somewhere – somewhere far away.”

“Where?” she said. “And why?”

“I don't know where – it'll depend on work, I guess. But – I want Poly to grow up somewhere where there'll be lots of people who are different, so that she doesn't learn to divide the world between the normal people and the freaks. It's not that I'm blaming our parents – but growing up here was limiting, in its way. You, at least, got to travel around the country. We were all born and bred here. We did okay, my sibs and me, but – I think we could have done better, if we'd had a better start. I want to do better for Poly than my parents did for me, and I think we need to go somewhere new, somewhere else.”

Meg lay quietly in the dark, thinking it over. “This place is very connected to – I guess, I'd think of it as a hub, or a convergence point. Time and space are heavy here. I do think that's made a difference, for us – the village is a cultural backwater, yes, but if you reach out with your higher senses you can connect to all sorts of pathways out.”

“I know what you mean,” Calvin said. After a moment, he asked, “Would it be all right with you if I started applying for a marine biology postdoc, somewhere in the Caribbean, maybe? I don't want you to feel like I'm dragging you around, or saying you have to leave your family, or anything like that – but I'd like to try an equatorial temper. Let Poly and her brothers and sisters grow up in an island paradise, with the sea close by to remind them of the interconnectedness of all things.”

“I think I could work with that,” Meg said, and meant it; she could see the life he was envisioning in her own mind, through his soft gentle kything, and it looked as good as any other to her. “It means giving up on a certain kind of prestige, it seems to me,” she added, “but I don't know that I'd mind so much.”

“Would you want to do another degree?”

She thought about that, too. “No,” she said, dismissing the bubble reality of that might-have-been, “I don't think I need to. I don't know what it would do for me. Right now, I think I'd rather have another baby than get another degree. Maybe that will change, someday – but I wouldn't bet on it. Poly's far more interesting than stuffy old professors of mathematics. I've done my apprenticeships, Cal, and I'm ready to embark on my own work. I can do that anywhere; and the baby, so far, has just made it easier. Maybe two will have an exponential effect, and I'll be solving millennium problems on the regular, who knows?”

“Most brilliant, I could never doubt you,” he said. “I'm worried about the world, but about you – 'every day you play with the light of the universe, subtle visitor.'”

“Quoting the poets, like Mrs. Who,” she said, snuggling back against him. “But I'm worried, too. People that I want to like, to give the benefit of the doubt … I'm just not sure how far we can reasonably trust the human desire for kindness, given how terribly easy it is to abuse your way through the world. Can I trust your brothers and sisters with our baby?” The question came out blunt, unexpected; but she waited intently for his answer.

“In some ways,” Calvin answered thoughtfully. “Not in others. They will not always be responsible with their emotions. So if she's nearby for trouble, she'll get pulled right in. It's not what I want for Poly. They won't hit her or hurt her directly. But I also feel like it would be easier to start over somewhere, just us – at least for a little while, so we can find our resonances as a family. We can always come back, once we've gone.”

“I don't know if that's entirely true,” Meg reflected. “I'm not arguing against the plan, just saying that – well, if you leave, then you're gone.”

“You're right,” Calvin said, wrapping an arm around her waist. “Maybe I'm not really thinking about what I'm talking about, what it could be like. I'm talking about going to an entirely different part of the planet.”

“We've gone stranger places together before, and survived, and deepened,” she said. “I'm not afraid of change.”

She turned over so that they were nose to nose, and she could see the blurry shape of his face in the darkness. Wriggling carefully, she maneuvered around him; he allowed her to position him so that her hips were straddling his waist, and she could rock herself forward and down onto his rising erection. She sighed with contentment as she relaxed to let him enter her, closing her eyes and leaning her forehead against his shoulder. The stream of the kythe around them made it easy to be generous as a lover; sensations of pleasure and fulfillment would echo between them in rippling circles, and giving was the first motion of receiving, for him as well as her.

Their lovemaking was passionate, if quiet; she felt every atom of her body, his body, heavy in their node of space/time, replete with potential. Calvin breathed harshly beneath her, and she threw her hips into it with vigorous intensity, pressuring and sliding away from the place where their bodies were joined in abandon and rapidity. His eyes fluttered closed and he had to muffle a hoarse shout, and she felt him coming inside of her; when his thumb slid up to caress her clitoris, with a touch both gentle and firm, she came, too; and then again, as he returned the touch almost as soon as the first wave of convulsions had left her. The smell of their bodies was sour and terrestrial, like salt and earth after a rain.

“Will you care what color the baby's eyes are?” she asked, nonsensically, as language returned to her.

“What baby?”

“Any of the babies. Poly, or the new baby we're going to have now. Can we name him Charles? For Charles Wallace, and your Uncle Chuck. It's a good, solid name. Well omened, no matter what his eyes come out like.”

“Of course we can. And of course it doesn't matter to me what Poly's eyes are like, or – the new baby? Really?”

“I think so,” Meg said. “Might-have-been's getting more solid.”

“I don't know if I understood that.”

“Sorry,” she said, yawning hugely, “I'm just tired and falling into my own shorthands. I'm glad that things have come better. I hope they'll keep on being well.”

“We'll do our best to make it so,” Calvin said, reaching out to pull her close; and then she was asleep and dreaming.


End file.
